This Song From Get Out Will Haunt You For the Rest of Your Days

One of the many things from Get Out that will stay with you is the music. Donald Glover’s “Redbone” is played, and there’s a creepy sequence with “Run Rabbit Run” by Flanagan and Allen, but the song that I can’t get out of my head is actually part of the film’s original score. It plays during the main credits and at the end of the film, and it’s called “Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga.” Writer/director Jordan Peele talked about the song in a recent interview with GQ:

“It’s Swahili, actually. It’s such a cool track. I was into this idea of distinctly black voices and black musical references, so it’s got some African influences, and some bluesy things going on, but in a scary way, which you never really hear. African-American music tends to have, at the very least, a glimmer of hope to it – sometimes full-fledged hope. I wanted Michael Abels, who did the score, to create something that felt like it lived in this absence of hope but still had [black roots]. And I said to him, ‘You have to avoid voodoo sounds, too.’

The words are issuing a warning to Chris. The whole idea of the movie is ‘Get out!’ – it’s what we’re screaming at the character on-screen. They go, ‘Brother, brother,’ in English, and then something to the effect of, ‘Watch your back. Something’s coming, and it ain’t good.'”